The Eyes of the Lost: The Remake
by Akua
Summary: Sequal;It was the little things that didn't add up. It was the feeling of loss that followed him since childhood. Something was wrong, something was missing. In desperation, is it human to hold on to everything one has and never let go, not even in death?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer; This is the continuation of an AU series. It won't adhere to either series but it will follow some of the facts and story lines of both series. The Harry Potter Characters belong to JR and the Demon Diary characters belong to "Kara". So… not mine, don't sue, this is just for fun._

_A/N; This is the start of the sequal for The Years Before; Remake. This is also a remake. Since I didn't have the heart to cover up the old story with this. Either way, this is the prelude chapter to introduce you to it so if it comes out as confusing, I'll explain it as it goes along and please don't expect it to be faithful to the old Eyes of the Lost. I hope you all enjoy this, and hopefully I'll have the following chapter up as soon as I can. I also apologize ahead of time for the lack of really responding to reviews... I just never got used to it, so I want to thank everyone for their reviews in The Years Before and that your encouragement really helped me finish that one, and I'm sure such encouragement will help me pull through on this one as well.  
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**Eyes of the Lost (The Remake)**

**Prelude: **Lost Suffering

_"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."_

--C.S. Lewis

* * *

_His body burned with a fire that he could not recognize. It burns and screamed in defiance and retribution and it burned and burned—and it felt so good at the same time. Power flowed under his skin and his body responded on instinct and he reached up and grasped and watched Professor Quirrell's face melt before he even touched it._

_He grasped and held and choked and burned—and power, there was such power…_

* * *

Harry stared at the veil in silence as he suddenly felt a stirring in his blood; it was the power again. It had always been there, really. Or that was what Harry liked to imagine because the presence within him was always so comforting. When there was no one else, there was always that power that would be able to save him. That power which stalled the Basilisk venom from spreading throughout his body as Fawkes flew to him and dropped his tears on to the wound. The power that allowed him to bat away a werewolf's claws…

When there was no one but himself…

A worried part of himself eased a little bit. The power was here with him now so he would refuse to worry. He hands formed in to fists as he listened to the whispers that came from the veil that he was staring at. They were saying something, but he was too far to really hear it. He glanced to his friends whom all had worried eyes pointed at him.

Harry pressed his lips together, glanced to the veil, to his friends before he murmured, "one moment…" He moved and hurried down the long staircase that led to the bottom of the dais that the giant stone arch was situated on. As he drew closer, the fluttering in the veil seemed to become more violent and Harry didn't dare move beyond the stairs that were attached to the dais. He wouldn't go up there, but he wanted to hear what the arch had to say.

He felt his friends crowd in silently against his back as he cocked his head to the side and listened to it. He power stirred in his ears and the whispered seemed to suddenly space and become legible. They were mournful laments of loss and pain and Harry felt his curiosity ease.

Maybe it was some way of talking to the dead? Harry considered the thought before he froze. To the dead? … if he could talk to the dead… oh, what he would give to talk to the dead. His parents! Harry felt the familiar aching hole of longing in his chest that hadn't been eased by time as he took another step up to the top of the stairs that led on to the actual dais.

Would they be proud of him?

Maybe… maybe… He ignored the way Hermione hissed his name worriedly as Ron muffled a sneeze behind a hand. But he was enamored by the idea and spoke, "Hermione… the voices, do you think… do you think you can talk to the dead with this arch?" He voice came out higher then he meant it to be, but that was fine with him as he removed his eyes from the arch and turned to look to Hermione. Hermione was giving him the look again, the look that said he had just done something abnormal, that he had done something strange.

"Harry… what voices?" Ginny asked, eyes wide as she held on to Neville's arm, her face pale and bloodless with worry that matched Neville's pinched look of nerves and pain. Harry gestured back to the veil. "They're from there. Can't you hear them?" Harry felt that spark of panic that came with incidents like this.

It was like learning that he could speak to snakes yet no one else but Voldemort could.

"Harry…" Hermione tried and failed to say something and Luna spoke softly, her cloudy eyes looking to the veil with a moment of startling clarity… "I can hear them too…"

Harry turned back to the veil and focused again on the voices—they had suddenly meshed together in a sudden flux of sound and it firmly drew his attention from the group. Harry stared, green eyes focused on the veil as a faint win brushed through the chamber and tugged rakishly through his black hair. It took him a moment to hear the words through the sudden pounding of his heart in his ears.

_"…sh blood is coming. Fresh blood is coming…" _A hungry groan amongst a series of animalistic growls and dreamy laughs._ "Fresh and live and squirming… it'll scream, it'll scream so good…"_

Harry's blood ran cold despite the power within that was warming him. Harry ignored the fine shake within his body as he stepped back from the veil a little bit, moving back down a step. His friends cleared out from behind him and Harry soon followed as they made their away from the veil.

"… lets just get what we came for and get on." They didn't want to be caught here.

* * *

_Harry tilted his head back and watched Voldemort rise from the cauldron that he had seen Wormtail drop the bundle in and he knew, deep down inside himself, that something terrible just happened. Something far worse then feeling such terrible pain when Voldemort touched his scar and brought him such pain that it couldn't even be described._

_Voldemort came out of the cauldron a monster. And somewhere, deep inside himself, some inexplicable knowledge cried that he should have come out human. That it was his blood that made the man a monster on the outside as well as the inside and Voldemort… Voldemort had gained something terrible because of this. And the power throbbed inside him but did nothing to defend him._

_And he was afraid._

* * *

"Everyone! A circle, back to back!" Harry cried out as he pulled his friends on to the dais in the center of the room. They all pressed together—friends, classmates and now comrades in arms—and stuck their wands out, tips of spells ready on everyone's lips as they waited for the pursuing Death Eaters to show. Harry tried to ignore the voices beyond the veil but they were going in to a frenzy and Harry knew, he really knew, that they weren't going to be able to match up to full grown wizards.

They weren't all going to make out of this alive and he felt his eyes dart to his left, to Ron, and then to his right, Hermione while he imagined the scared faces of Ginny, Neville and Luna that were behind them. Was this… Was this how things would end for them? Cut down by a Death Eater's spell?

Harry didn't think of it anymore as a black wind scattered them apart and pushed them down, and he clutched the prophecy to his body and wondered if…

… he wondered if he used his power this time, would it disappear entirely?

He'd give anything to make sure that didn't happen.

* * *

_The words from the blood quill disturbed Harry as he wrote the lines that tore in to his hand._

_I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies._

_But the blood was not red._

_It was black._

_The paper scorched and turned charcoal black around the words._

_I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies._

_But he didn't know the truth anymore, what was left to say but lies?_

* * *

It seemed to take an age for Sirius to fall. And Harry felt time freeze, he felt the chill run through his body as Sirius's back arched and curved delicately as his body tipped backwards in to the greedy arms of the veil and the veil whispered out—_"mine."_

The laughter mingled with surprise and a sudden growing fear was all Harry could see as he watched Sirius fall back through the veil and disappear in to the darkness of the ragged arms of the horrible voices that were chanting_ 'mine, mine, mineminemine'. _Harry screamed, it was a name but he was unsure of what it was as he turned and darted away from safety, from comfort, from friends—this was something better then that. His only family had just fallen away from him!

He had said he would give anything, but he hadn't meant it! Not really!

Harry screamed as heavy, strong arms circled around his waist and stopped his forward momentum in to the veil after his godfather. He struggled, trying to push through on mere strength as his fingers tried to pry off the strong bonds of the arms that circled around him and pulled him back against an equally strong chest. He couldn't breath, he could think—and her cold, cold laughter drove in harsh spikes of pain in to his chest as the world blurred and… and…

The power shifted lazily around under his skin.

Useless.

Harry did something he had never done before and grasped the power inside his body, the power he normally waited to act on his own he took the reins and pushed his burnings hands down on to the arms around his body. A touch, or had he really touched those arms?—he didn't know, but the bonds, the arms restraining him released and he stumbled forward as the raggedly black drapes of the veil reached out and welcomed him in.

Ice—ice—ice; everything was ice and darkness within and he heard the power inside take on a voice…

_Let me in._

* * *

Remus Lupin fell to the floor in a pain that almost equaled a werewolf transformation, he arms held ramrod straight away from his body as he choked on air. The burning was so intense and the smell of the burned skin clogged his senses—he couldn't breath, couldn't think and all he could feel was the pain and his body knew something that he couldn't comprehend. It knew that he had deserved it and the beast inside reared back in anger before its scream lowered in to a soft growl of submission.

Something had happened and no one had noticed. The fight and spells over head continued on without a though. No one tired to hit him on the floor as he writhed in pain. Some part of Remus, the rational side, stated that the Death Eaters probably thought someone had him under some kind of torture curse while the Order was trying to find the one holding him under and stop them. Not that anyone was holding him under.

The energy bled out of his body and he laid limply on the ground, panting. The battle, he saw through tired eyes, was nearly over. Stragglers. They were the only ones left and the Order members in the room really had overpowered the Death Eaters that had come. Remus gasped for air weakly on the floor and tried to think coherently again.

It truly struck him then…

Harry had gone through the veil.

Remus pressed his face on to the ice cold stone and held in the whimper that threatened to come out. The boy that he had been trying to protect had… had killed himself. Remus felt so… so damn tired. He curled his hands in to fists, relishing in the pain that he knew he now deserved that shot through his arms around the burned flesh on his forearms and he slammed a fist against the floor with a sob.

Was this really happening? Couldn't this be a dream?

Like the night that Lily and James had died—everything had felt like a dream then too.

"R-Remus…?" A voice questioned overhead before someone kneeled down next to him, a slender hand placed on his back in a comforting motion. Remus didn't look up from the floor as a sob choked up past his lips. The gentle hand became firmer as another one came and brushed his hair in a soothing motion he couldn't feel as the tears finally poured out of his eyes and on to the floor.

Two in one day, that had to be breaking some kind of law of the universe, wasn't it? There had to be some type of rule that you couldn't take more then one precious person a day, right? Sirius… Sirius had been so precious and Harry had been so young and now they were dead! He and Sirius had finally mended their strained friendship and together… together they had finally started to get to know the son that Lily and James had left behind.

And now they were both gone.

Remus shivered, pain clenching his stomach and he pushed down the need to be sick. They were both gone and all that there was left was the rat that had started everyone on to this path. Remus froze, stiffening and causing the person brushing his hair in comfort to cautiously call his name. Wormtail… Peter, was still alive. Wasn't that some type of cosmic joke? Everyone that was good and precious was dead and that worthless person was still alive!

He almost snapped his jaws on someone's hand when someone jerked his face up from the floor and it took him a moment to recognize Tonks. He blinked at Nymphadora's somber, scraggily black hair and nearly let out a hysterical laugh. She had tears in her eyes too and he realized that this woman was nearly the last descendent of Black alive. There was, of course, Nymphadora's mother and her two aunts to take in to consideration.

At the way things were going, Draco Malfoy would be the last person to have even a sliver of Black blood in their veins and it felt like something precious was going instinct. Sirius hadn't left behind a child. There really had been no time for the other to get around to doing such a thing. And now, look at what happened… there was nothing left behind. There wasn't even Harry.

Nymphadora wiped away the tears from his face and encouraged him to stand. Remus weakly did so as he turned to the veil that fluttered in the nonexistent breeze—and Remus imagined that it moved with contentment. Two lives… two lives…

Two lives that had both, never really had the chance to live. Sirius really had been a teenager at heart.

Remus stepped closer to the veil, shrugging off Nymphadora's hands as he stepped closer, and he ignored as Moody hobbled his way over to where he stood. He wasn't going to follow them in, he wouldn't be able to do that. He wouldn't do it while Peter still lived. Remus stopped in front of the arch and stared up at it. What really was this arch? It was obvious that it led someone to their death…

But where was the rest of the information? What if it was possible to bring someone back from it? Remus didn't let himself hope for it, but he imagined that if it was possible it would have been a lot nicer then simply being helpless in the face of the veil. Moody roughly grabbed his arm with a strong hand grip and Remus couldn't stop the way he collapse with a scream. His arm! The burn!

It was as if a touch was the trigger for the pain to begin again and Moody made sure to drop him as he hit the floor again with a closed mouth scream. He knew that he was being levitated away from the scene, he knew it and he continued to mourn his lose even as he suffered from the pain.

Was the price for love and friendship death?

* * *

_Let me in._

_Let me in…_

_…let me in… my… de…a…r… one…_

_…I'll ensure our survival… in the land of horrors…_


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer; Not mine._

_A/N: I bit short, but inspiration suddenly hit me again and I decided to end it here. Hopefully I can start a schedule for this and finish this little series up soon enough. Or at least before my summer semester starts. That way I'll be one story down with a few more to go before I'll allow myself to write anything else. Even the giant one-shot that I have that's half written. So, I hope you all like the continuation, and appreciate the different turn of the story. And hopefully it's written better then it's previous incarnation?_

**The Eyes of the Lost; Remake**

**Chapter 2; **The Lost; Condemned

* * *

Harry woke up to darkness. He moved his arms to absentmindedly push off from the floor he was on. Sitting up, he looked down to the black marble floor and thought it was supposed to be cold. But the dim light didn't allow for him to see much, but he still thought it should have been cold. But his bare hands didn't feel anything at all.

Staring down at his worn trainers at the end of his stretched out legs, Harry reached up and touched his head. His head felt like it was full of cotton and his gut was twisted in a most horrendous manner. Harry pressed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and willed it all away...

... and all the horrible feelings in his body disappeared.

His head felt slow and thick, but nothing hurt.

Harry raised his head and tracked where the light was coming from. Looking around, it was like he was surrounded by an endless darkness, everything fading off from where his eyes could see them in to a black haze. But there was one source of light. He drew his eyes up to where a ceiling was supposed to be. It really was just an endless expanse of black with a single shaft of light falling down in to a circle on the floor.

And there was a figure already there.

Just a kid. Not even eleven...

And the other was staring at him, and Harry stared back.

They didn't look anything alike, really. The child's hair was some kind of dark grey with a shade of tan or dirty blond and his eyes were a pastel shade of green, looking more blue then green if Harry wanted to give his own opinion, comparing the kid to his own brilliant eyes. The boy was tanner and his short hair helped his skin look darker. Harry squinted and guessed that the other was wearing some kind of expensive one piece, dark grey body suit with a zipper down the front. The suit ended at his knees and had no sleeves... and looked rather neat.

"Uh.." Harry stuttered and broke under that stare, and those pastel eyes of the other sharpened more on him.

The child frowned, before he lifted his chin, eyes going lidded as he looked down at Harry. "So..." The lightly pitched voice started, lips twisted down in annoyance or disgust (Harry didn't really want to know which was which...), "you finally woke up, didn't you."

"... how long have I been out?"

"Long enough." The boy answered his questions like quick fire, the words tumbling out of the others' small mouth before Harry had even a chance to close his own. Frowning at the other, Harry took a moment to coordinate himself enough to stand. He paused and shifted, looking around the area once more as he tried to ignore the boy's staring.

After a moment, Harry started to shift a bit toward the light. Stepping closer to where the boy was standing. He had suddenly gotten a chill from the air, and the light looked warm enough. In fact, the closer he got the other the warmer the air seemed to be. The child was frowning severely now, though. And the closer Harry got to the other, the sharper his eyes seems to get.

He stopped a few feet from the circle and spoke to the child, "... where are we?" The frown fell off of the kid's face and Harry stared at the neutral countenance for a moment before the pale kid straightened his back and drew up his shoulders, as if trying to make himself bigger then what he actually was. As if preparing to fight for something that Harry would take away. But Harry didn't see anything on the other that he would want to take. They both had the clothes on their back and nothing else, and Harry took a moment to check for his wand as the kid fought for words. No wand, but that didn't actually worry him.

"You're inside me." The kid finally said and Harry froze.

"... excuse me?" Harry didn't think he had just heard the other right. He was 'inside' the other? "What's that supposed to mean?" He ground out the last of his words, staring down at the kid who stared back just as hard as him.

Something tickled in the back of Harry's mind, but he didn't know what.

"You heard me." The boy didn't repeat himself.

Harry snorted, resisted in rolling his eyes and he stepped forward, moving to join the other in the circle to grab the little brat's arm and get a clear answer out of the other (because he had a feeling that the tickling in the back of his mind was actually panic, and not some part of him telling him that he was forgetting something trivial, but he was probably forgetting something too).

The moment he touched the light, though, something invisible and hard swatted in to him, and he let out a short scream as he tumbled through the air and eventually landed on the hard floor on his shoulders and rolled.

The boy just watched him with impassive eyes from his circle of gold.

And suddenly, the marble under him felt like ice, and Harry thought he was going to freeze. His gut clenched and he groaned. All the pain that had disappeared doubled back around and it hurt. Everything hurt and froze and he gave a hard shudder before he noticed that his body was in a perpetual state of freezing. It took a long moment for him to become coordinate again, enough to stand up.

And he drifted back to the light like a wounded dog. The air got warmer the closer he got, but he didn't touch the light again. And the cold didn't leave.

"W.. why did you do that?" Harry chattered out between clenched teeth, arms wrapped around his pained middle to cradle his body... and to help preserve precious warmth.

The kid's gaze actually had the gall to look hurt before he looked away from Harry. "I didn't do this." He moved, finally moved and pressed his arms forward. He pressed his hands against an invisible wall where the light ended. The kid was as much as a prisoner as he was.

Harry watched as the invisible wall gained a golden, murky appearance, consuming the shaft of light. The boy removed his hands and the barrier turned invisible again.

"... so, you're trapped too..." Harry trailed off and the boy's lost face turned neutral again before he turned his back to Harry.

"Not _'too_'." The boy bit out and Harry blinked.

"... what?"

"Not _'too_'. You're not stuck here,_ too._" He glanced over his shoulder. "_You're_ not bound here. _You're_ not encased. _You're_ not imprisoned and _you're_ not alone!" His voice had risen and risen as his words turned to a scream and he whipped around and stepped close to the barrier. He didn't touch it, but he locked eyes with Harry once again.

"Don't lump me with you. You haven't lost anything, you sorry_ worm_."

Harry reared back and a hot flash of anger ran through him like lightning... and then he remembered...

Sirius.

The Veil.

_And that voice._

His insides turned as cold as his outsides as he spun around in a circle, trying to get a clue of where he was. the child let out a short and bitter snort that had Harry turning around to see him once again. And he recoiled at the other's new sight.

Blood. It covered the child. His hair had blackened and the only color he had were the pastel green of his dull, light-less eyes. The barrier kept the blood in, and it swirled around his knees.

"But I can tell..." The boy's voice had turned deep and hoarse... smoky and wispy and damaged. "That you're going to suffer too. Somehow... somehow you've brought us back." The kid's face didn't look deranged, per say... but Harry found himself stepping back from the other at the same. And it wasn't so much that the others' once clear voice was fading out, but it sounded like the other was being 'blocked'.

"... but... I can't believe you're ruining it. This second chance, _you're ruining everything again!_"

And then the voice disappeared, even though the lips of the child kept moving. Eventually, the blood covered boy realized that Harry couldn't hear him anymore. The look on his face turned to rage and he pounded against the barrier with his tiny fists, yelling at Harry in a voice that Harry could not hear. The blood started to rise even as the barrier started to solidify. Their eyes remained lock until the barrier turned in to a solid pillar of sparkling, pristine gold.

The last visible sight of the boy's face had made it clear that he was trying to tell him something.

But Harry didn't understand.

He turned on his heel and ran.

* * *

Sirius Black returned to the world of consciousness, half frozen and with a great weight over his chest. He groaned weakly and rolled, moving on to his side. The heavy thump followed the great weight that had slipped off his chest and it took more energy then he thought it would have for himself to open his eyes.

A pale, limp hand laying on grey-brown dirt did not strike him as a good thing, especially when he was sure that he still had both of his own and they were both at his stomach. His eyes drifted down. Worn old jeans and a ripped up dark grey shirt... Sirius squinted his eyes before squeezing his eyes shut. Something gave a heavy lurch in his stomach and he resisted the urge to hurl. Everything hurt with an icy pain and it took more will-power then effort to raise himself in to a sitting position.

Numbly, he looked down at the still form of his godson, who's legs were sprawled out awkwardly across his own. Harry looked as cold as he felt and he reached out shakily and touched the side of the others' face. He paused before bringing his hand back and tapping the side of the other's face.

"... Harry?" His hoarse voice cracked and his throat felt on fire for a moment as he tapped the other's face. He shifted forward and moved on to his knees to hover over his godson. He moved again and leaned in close, holding the side of his face above Harry's mouth and he waited to feel the other's breath ghost over his skin.

... and he kept on waiting.

Sirius pulled back numbly before he reached out and idly brushed away some of the ice crystals that were clinging to Harry's clothes and skin. The cold was wearing off on his own skin and he could feel the waves of cold emanating from Harry. He touched the other's skin again and continued to tap the other's face.

He didn't feel the panic or horror that he thought he should be feeling. His sleepy mind was swiftly waking up and his processing abilities were slowly starting their boot up.

Warm tracks of tears were falling down his face, but he couldn't control that. His lips trembled and the world was becoming blurry.

His godson was dead, wasn't he?

He got all those he loved killed, didn't he? With his immature, childish behavior. With his inability to take anything seriously. Not only that, he hurt everyone with his casually cruel words. He had hurt Remus during school, more then what should have been allowed. And he had hurt James with his rashness and with his hot temper. And most of all, he had hurt Harry. Harry, who had been looking at him with such vulnerable desperate eyes for years. The ones that had shuttered so hard with hurt when Sirius's line of James and Harry seemed to blur in to one person.

Sirius gasped. Suddenly the world was in flux and everything wobbled around him and the icy chill of Dementors penetrated his soul. A choked sob ripped itself from his body even as a weakness tore through it. He hunched over Harry's body, drawing together the other's thin limbs that hadn't yet finished growing. He pulled the other to his chest and tried to wrap himself around the other as if to protect his Godson from the world at large.

Not that it'd do any good anymore.

Because his godson was_ dead_.

He was too late, just like always.

And he couldn't run after and chase anyone in rage, because the only person he had to rage at and to blame was himself. No one else.

But it was because of how wrapped up he was around his godson, that he was able to tell when Harry's chest suddenly constricted and then rose. He heard the sharp whistle of air passing through chapped lips and the sudden, hot burst of warmth from Harry's body bled in to his own body.

Sirius lifted his face from Harry's hair and he looked down with large, wounded eyes at his godson's suddenly flushed face. To the other's slightly moving mouth as he breathed. The hot bubble of joy grew within Sirius and soon the tears of horror and pain were replaced by joy.

He rocked his godson back and forth in his arms, and finally he took the chance to look around.

They were inside a misty forest. Taking a deep breath through his nose, he was able to tell that the forest was old. The heady smell of age and rot and life permeated the air. Sirius raised a shaking hand and patted down Harry's wild, black hair as he continued to look around through teary eyes.

All the trees around them were dead and black, twisted grotesquely like reaching arms and grasping fingers. The trunks of the trees were warped, as if they were writhing in pain. There was no grass and no moss, and even the dirt under them looked blackened and grey. He couldn't see much through the mist, but for some reason the hackles on his neck were starting to rise.

He felt like he was being watched.

Sirius took a moment to feel around his pockets. No wand. He checked Harry. There wasn't a wand there either. Neither of their wands were on the ground and Sirius could distinctly remember his own tumbling out of his grasp as he fell. A new chill gripped his heart as the feeling of helplessness took over. He did his best to shake it away as he moved Harry around. It took a moment before he had the teenager slung over his back and his arms looped around Harry's legs.

This place felt dangerous.

Slowly, wearily, Sirius rose from the ground. Harry's weight made his back groan painfully, but he didn't dare set Harry down. Harry needed medical attention. And he'd damn himself to hell before he failed his godson one more time. He looked around in a slow circle. They were in some type of wide clearing, in the dead middle. In fact, where they had landed, the ground was a light, sickly brown. A small circle surrounded by black earth.

Sirius paused, even as instincts told him to start moving. He moved a booted foot and rooted around in the dirt a little. His mind supplying a triumphant noise as he uncovered something shiny.

He carefully crouched and reaching down, grasping the shiny before he straightened up once more, precariously staying bent over some to keep Harry on his back. He took a moment to observe what he found.

The shiny had been a giant red gem. Encased in the black metal of a handle in a dagger. There was some kind of leather wrapping around the metal for an easy grip. He moved the dagger around so that the handle laid in his hand. It was small in his arm hands. But the handle was long enough to fit in to his hand with a little room to spare.

The blade had serrated edges on one side and a smooth edge to the other. The metal was a deep grey and unlike one Sirius had ever seen before. He didn't know metal came in this kind of color. He was used to shiny swords and all. Maybe it was a personal preference of the former owner? Sirius paused before he shook his head and stuck the dagger in to the belt of his pants. Former owner indeed, Sirius didn't think anyone would miss it.

The feeling of being watched, the feel of danger; it grew stronger the longer he lingered. So he shifted to the left merely because he liked the thought of going that way. He stepped over a long, blackened branch on the ground and stepped on to the smaller once that had been hidden behind it. Sirius grimaced at the sound. The branch had sounded like a bone being broken. Sirius shook his head and swiftly made his way to the edge of the clearing.

The dirt on the edge was the sickly dead yellow-brown as the center. He turned and observed the clearing, noticing that it seemed this clearing had a huge circle of dark dirt. He frowned, paused and then turned away. He needed to get help for Harry, and help wasn't going to just stroll up to them all gay and dandy. No, Sirius was going to get them help.

He increased his pace and left the clearing, listening to his own heart beat and he felt...

... anticipation, maybe?


End file.
